


All the Truth That's Fit to Print

by canis_m



Category: Peacemaker Kurogane
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-07-07
Updated: 2004-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-07 01:55:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canis_m/pseuds/canis_m
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shenanigans at Shinsen High.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Truth That's Fit to Print

_Shieikan University Poetry Club Anthology, Spring, 19--._

It was a mystery no matter how you looked at it. Especially the way it'd been crammed between chemistry and mathematics texts, out of sight, like a dirty magazine. Souji trailed a finger along the spine, cocking his head first to one side, then the other. He raised his voice.

"Sensei?"

"Sensei who."

"Ah...I mean Hijikata-san. What's this?"

"Nnah?" A shadow shuffled to block the light in the doorway that separated living room from kitchen. Hijikata did not (to Souji's regret) wear an apron while cooking, not even in the privacy of his own apartment. His eyes narrowed at the sight of Souji stooped by the bookcase. "What're you snooping over there for?"

"Because! You can tell a lot about someone from their bookshelves."

"Such as."

"Such as whether they read naughty comics ahaha--"

"Brat."

Souji muffled his laughter behind the volume in his hands. It was slender, cheaply bound. From close quarters he peered at the cover again.

"'Collected student works of'--ah!"

The book was snatched from his grip like a hare into the claws of a hawk.

"Enough."

Souji blinked. It seemed impossible, but. "Sensei...were you in the poetry club?"

"Sensei who." With a _smack_ Hijikata slapped the anthology high atop the bookcase, out of Souji's reach. The glower twisting his face quivered.

"Hijikata-saaan, you were in the poetry club? Really? So some of those in that book are poems you wro--"

"Food's ready." Hijikata pivoted. "Come and eat."

"Ehhh, but I wanna read your--"

"You want the dinner that _I cooked_ for _the likes of you_ to get cold?"

Souji snapped his mouth shut and followed with a flounce into the kitchen.

*

Much later, when the clock's hour hand had slunk into single digits, and Hijikata's breath was gusting in almost-snores on the nape of his neck, Souji weaseled out from the warmth of the bedcovers to creep toward the living room bookcase.

*

The Shinsen High School student newspaper was published biweekly at best, per wax and wane of news fit to print and the journalism club's unreliable ardor. Fresh issues often caught Hijikata unawares; the latest was no exception. He was maundering through the staff room to refill his coffee when a fellow teacher caught him by the sleeve.

"Hijikata-sensei, I never would've guessed." Itou was tittering. "Perhaps you could be persuaded to do a guest lesson during our unit on haiku, mm?"

The word _haiku_ stopped Hijikata in his tracks. He gripped the handle of his coffee mug.

"What?" he said.

"Hah hah, Toshi, decided to come clean?" From behind Kondou thumped him on the shoulder. The gesture was evidently meant to be bolstering. "Good for you. Shows your human side. Maybe the freshmen'll stop running away at the sight of you--"

Something in Hijikata's face--the clenched jaws, the pulse of blood vessels about to pop--gave Kondou pause.

"You did know, didn't you? About the article?"

"Article. No."

"In, ah, in the paper?"

Kondou groped toward his desk and unfurled the latest _Makoto!_ to its front page.

> **THE BASHO OF SHINSEN HIGH?!**  
> Chem Teacher's Literary Slip is Showing
> 
> Feature story by Yamazaki Ayumi &amp; Yamazaki Susumi
> 
> Believe it or not, Shinsen's greatest expert on haiku may not be Japanese lit teacher Itou Kashitarou, but chemistry teacher Hijikata Toshizou. An anonymous source has provided us with evidence that Hijikata-sensei was an accomplished poet during his college years, and a member of the Shieikan University Poetry Club.
> 
> Students currently studying chemistry with Hijikata-sensei were stunned by this revelation when we spoke to them. "No way!" was the reaction of second-year Hanako. "For real?" asked senior Momotaro. (Names have been changed to protect the identity of interviewees.) But the proof is in the poems. Take a look at these selected haiku, then tell us at _Makoto!_\--and don't forget Hijikata-sensei—what YOU think.
> 
> _The plum blossoms  
> Even if one of them blooms  
> A plum is a plum._

The article continued. Hijikata lowered his hand and let the paper drop.

"Toshi?"

"Excuse me." His vision hazed, but he stalked without wavering to the closet that served as control room for the school-wide intercom. He shut the door behind him, then lowered his head like a bull for the charge and jabbed the on switch with one finger.

"CLASS 2-B, OKITA SOUJI, REPORT TO THE STAFF ROOM AFTER SCHOOL. REPEAT. OKITA SOUJI, REPORT TO THE STAFF ROOM AFTER SCHOOL." He flicked the switch and did not add "PREPARE TO DIE."

As he left the closet and crossed back to his desk, the other teachers--even Itou--gave him a wide berth. His temples throbbed. He caught his hand in mid-reach toward the pocket of his lab coat, which had held no cigarettes for weeks. His teeth ground with renewed force. Checking assignments was impossible. He spent the last half of homeroom period making curt stabbing motions with his pen, while at the neighboring desk Kondou expounded on subjects--the baseball team, the sports festival--that seemed safer than poetry.

The bell rang. Noise filled the hallway outside. Students appeared in the staff room doorway, slurring or omitting their "Excuse me"s with more or less disregard for propriety. After a time the door slid open again, and another voice rang, bright and clear and faultlessly polite.

Hijikata stood.

"Sensei?" Even in the face of impending doom, that damned smile. "You wanted to see me?"

Without a word Hijikata strode toward the guidance counselor's desk. "Saitou-sensei, I need to borrow your office for disciplinary purposes."

Saitou's eyes continued to droop. "Of course. Restraints are in the second drawer on the right, paddle on the left." When Souji gaped at him, Saitou smiled thinly. "Only joking. Goodbye, Okita-kun."

"Saitou-sensei---!" Souji flailed an arm. It was too late; Hijikata had seized him by the collar and was hauling him into the guidance office, which was convenient in having a door that locked. "Noooo, I'm too young to die I'm too young to--"

"Should've thought of that before you did what you did." Hijikata rammed the door shut. "Now." He glared for a moment. There was a single desk in the room, so he hulked on the edge of it and crossed his arms. Souji fidgeted in front of him. "The book."

"Eh?"

"MY ANTHOLOGY. You still have it? Or did you give it to the Yamazaki twins?"

"N...no, I have it. At home, I mean."

"I want it back."

Souji's bottom lip poked out. "...Can't I keep it?"

"THE HELL YOU CAN, YOU LITTLE--" He broke off. "What d'you want to keep it for?"

"Because I like your poems. They remind me of you." Souji ducked his head, as if overcome by bashfulness, then giggled _eheheh_ into a lifted hand. "They're cute."

Cute.

"ONE HUNDRED PROBLEM SETS!"

"Eeeeek!"

"FIFTY EXTRA LAB REPORTS!"

"Gyaaaa!"

"SEE IF I EVER COOK FOR YOU AGAIN!"

At that Souji stopped pretending to cower and began to look aggrieved. "Sensei, I only did it so everybody else could see, too. What you're really like. It seemed unfair that I'm the only one who gets to see." His cheeks puffed fat with a sigh. "Now that I think about it, all I've done is multiplied my rivals."

"Your what?"

"All the people who didn't have a crush on you already--as soon as they see your sensitive, p-poetic side--"

"What. Rivals."

His palm landed on Souji's head, not roughly. He stroked the dark hair under his hand until Souji was lulled enough to lean forward, then nudge like a small, soothed animal into his white coat.

"...Hijikata-san."

Hijikata smiled. His free hand reached for the second desk drawer on the right.


End file.
